Never the Same
by gracer11
Summary: after s5 What happens when a stranger finds the Mallrats 10 years after they leave the city? Is it a stranger after all? Find out in my story through Trudy's view. Please R&R!
1. Too Many Apples to Handle

Brady laid down on her bed, in the hospital, to write in her diary. She had started it when she turned fourteen. Sure it was kind of childish, but it helped her control all of her feelings. God knows how many feelings she had, especially anger.

Your probably saying, "Hold on, the hospital? Is she sick or something?" The answer would be no. She had moved there with me, her mom, and the rest of her "family". Her family wasn't her dad or siblings, no, this was her family from the mall. The ones she had known since she was little. We had to move from the mall because of this new virus, but she didn't understand it when they moved. I mean, she was only four when that happened. Now she was nineteen, going on twenty. She never knew her grandparents, or her father, they had all died before she could get to know them, which probably caused a lot of her anger. Well, now, in her writing, she could get it all out of her system.

After about twenty minutes of waiting, I went into her room and started reading:

**_Dear Diary,_**

_**I just met with Tristan today, we had so much fun. We went to look for something to eat, and we found a field full of apples. We weren't short on food or anything, our parents make sure of that, but we wanted time alone. And after gathering apples, we went to a playground I found when we moved here and just talked, sitting on the swing set, for about twenty minutes. It seemed like those twenty minutes of talking made living in this hospital almost bearable. I know I shouldn't like him, you know, because he's two years younger than me, but who cares, he's only about two months younger than cousin Bray. And I think he feels the same about me, as I do about him. Well, wait, actually I have no idea how I feel about him. **_

_**Speaking of Bray, I think there's something going on between him and Tessa. And I'm not over exaggerating. Even though Amber probably doesn't want her son dating Ebony and Slade's daughter. Or maybe the other way around, but that shouldn't matter if they really like each other. This is good news for Tessa, but she hasn't heard it yet. It's my job as Best Friend to tell her the obvious. She probably thinks they're just friends, but does she have something coming her way **_

_**Well, that's it for today, I'll write later.**_

_** A New Me,**_

_** Brady**_

Wow, that was a surprise. Usually Brady's excerpts include some thing like: **_I can't believe I'm living here. I would do anything to be somewhere else. _**I know, being her mother, I shouldn't be snooping around her private stuff, especially her diary, I just want to be in the loop.

Brady never talks to me anymore. And when she does, she calls me by my real name, Trudy, and not Mom. But I can tell she's been softening up. She called me Mom last night at dinner and I think it was because of Tristan. He must have gotten the ability to soften people from his dad, Ryan.

I remember when Ryan wasn't here. Salene was all alone for about two years, well except for Pride, who, as you know, isn't with us anymore. Then we came to this God forsaken island and bumped into him. Turns out he was looking for Salene after The Guardian sent him away. After that day, and once we found this abandon hospital, they got together and started a family since their previous baby didn't make it. This family included Ryan, Salene, and Tristan. Tristan's about 17 now, the same age as Bray, and one year older than Tessa.

"Everyone here?" Amber, our tribe leader, questioned as I made my way to our weekly tribe meeting. We always met around a big bonfire, and at night, to remind us of our name. Oh, and were not The Mallrats anymore. As you can tell, we don't live in the mall. And we can't very well be "The Hospitalrats". That made everyone laugh aloud when Brady suggested it all those years ago. Well, you can't blame her, she was so young. So, we decided to be Nightfall. The reason is that we happened to find the hospital at nightfall. Soothing isn't it? Nightfall, I mean. Well, I think so anyway.

Jay called out everyone's name as they answered "Here," or "Yes,". Kind of sad how it felt like school used to be, but that was a long time ago. In our whole tribe, there was about twenty people.

"Good. Everyone's here." Amber said nervously. "This is hard for me to say, but," Amber hesitated as the next few words past her mouth. "Well, we aren't the only ones on this island."

_

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A/N: This is my first FanFic so please don't make fun of it. R&R. I'm already working on the next chapter. Please review, it would help me out a lot._


	2. The Ones We Left Behind

"What!" Bray, Tessa, and Tristan said in unison. I noticed a most of the older Mallrats, oh wait I guess it would be Nightfalls, but if feels so weird. Anyway, they didn't react like this either. I'm pretty sure they had a good idea who was here with us too, just like me. We had left them behind, you know, in city. I'm not talking about a certain tribe, even though there are probably some that dislike us. No, I'm talking about everyone that we left behind. I mean, there wasn't enough room on the boat for everyone in the city! Well, I'm pretty sure they were mad when we left. They thought, "The Mallrats will protect us, they have through everything else." But nope. We left, and that probably stirred up a lot of anger. Over the past few years, it's probably built some of that anger up into fury. Now they're coming for revenge.

"I suppose some of you have already figured out who they are, by the look on you faces," Amber said while looking around at the tribe member's faces, I followed suit. Everyone very well knew who was after us, but the three who had asked "What?" before looked dazed and confused. Brady kind of knew what was going on, but not fully. "Tessa, Tristan, Bray, we owe you an explanation. We should have told you before that when we left the city, not everyone was happy. Most people were leaving also, but those who weren't, didn't like our decision. They thought we were abandoning them. Most of them probably came to their senses, and left the city. Having us on their minds, they tracked us down. Successfully I might add. But we have an advantage, we know where they are, and they don't know about the hospital. So now we have to think of a plan to keep everyone safe. Any suggestions?" Amber blurted out as if wanting to get it over with as soon as possible.

Tessa looked dumbfounded, Bray looked slightly confused, and Tristan, well, you can never tell what he's thinking about. That, I think, he inherited from his mother. You could tell everything that was going on in Ryan's head.

"We could surprise them and attack," Lex offered quickly. Good old Lex, always thinking about the violent way out.

Thankfully, Jay said, contradicting him, "No way. I went with Amber and saw how many we would be up against. There are way more of them than there is of us."

"How many?" I questioned.

"At least fifty, so that's out of the question," Amber answered for Jay.

"We could always move again," Tessa suggested.

"We've done it before," Lottie added.

"Do you really want to leave just because of them?" Ryan asked. I saw them shake their heads no.

"Well, we know we're not leaving, but we've got to do something."

I remember something in Brady's diary: _I saw him three days ago, he looked pretty familiar. He actually looked like me, but in a boy version, weird. But how could that be? Mom said I was her only child. Oh, but what about my dad? Maybe he had another child? Well, maybe I'll ask mom, but not now, maybe I won't even tell anyone. That would cause way too much stress if I did. If he did have another child, why didn't he tell mom?_

This pop into my mind, so I asked nervously, "Who are they?"

Amber was surprised at this, "I thought especially you would know who they were."

"I know who they are in general, but who are they ? Like names?" This question surprised her even more. From the looks of it, she hadn't thought of this before.

"Well...umm...we couldn't exactly tell, we never stayed long enough, "Amber answered sheepishly, "We just assumed and..."

"The point is," Jay came to her rescue, " we don't know who they are. They might be dangerous, they might not. We need to prepare for the worst. So, what are we going to do?"

"Maybe we could reason with them," Salene offered, "It always used to work." She was right, it did work, for awhile anyway. It might work this time.

"Yeah, we could at least try that and then attack if we need to," I urged. This was the best idea I had heard so far. Many others agreed too.

"So Amber, O Great Leader, what do you say?" Lex said getting a couple of snickers from the "O Great Leader" comment.

"I have absolutely no idea," Amber said defeated.

"I think is too much for right now. If they haven't attacked yet, why should they now? I think we all need some sleep," Ryan said soothingly. These words were comforting too everyone's ears, we had been talking for so long and it was so late, everyone was tired.

"Even though that sounds so nice, Ryan, we need to think about this a little bit more. How about ten more minutes and then we'll go to sleep. OK?" I could tell Amber didn't like keeping her friends awake, but she had to.

Everyone was deep in thought, when all of a sudden I heard someone behind us, "Well, what about actually seeing if they're dangerous before going to the extremes? And not expect the worst? I'm sure that will work," We turned around to find a grinning stranger staring back at us, but he wasn't really a stranger, or at least he looked like someone a couple of us used to know.

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A/N I hope you like it. Please read and review! _

_words: 925 (text only)_


	3. Someone New

"Who are you?" I heard Brady ask, even though you could tell she already partly knew.

"I would think you, especially, would know who I am, big sis," The figure in the firelight stated.

"He's your brother, Brady?" Tristan asked in disbelief.

"Actually, half brother, my name's Tanner," Tanner answered for Brady because she was still dumbstruck by this sudden turn of events.

"Tanner? Is that really you?" I knew it was, but I had to ask anyway.

"Mom? You know him?" Brady sounded hurt while saying this.

"Of course I know him. He's my son," It pained me to say these words, but I needed to, for my daughter's sake.

"Your son?" Brady asked so quietly, I could barely hear her.

"I'm sorry, but when I was with the Ecos, I met someone, Twilight. We were madly in love until one day he died unexpectedly. Amber knew I was going to have his baby, and she helped me get though Tanner's birth. It was then I figured out that I didn't have the physical or emotional strength to raise him myself. Luckily, another one of the other Ecos, Sky, Twilight's sister, agreed to take care of him." I said, finishing up my story.

The word "wow" was forming on some of my fellow tribe member's mouths.

"That's pretty much it," Tanner added. "But then I got old enough to live on my own, and I came to find you. Sky accidentally let it slip she wasn't my real mom."

"If your dad is Twilight, then why do you look so familiar? Well, other than the fact your Trudy's child." Salene asked in interest..

"Well, Twilight wasn't my dad's real name, I found out," Tanner said nervously.

"Brink," I said quietly, hoping no one would hear me. Unfortunatly, Tristan probably would. Did I tell you he also had excellent hearing?

"What did you say, Trudy?" Yea, it was Tristan, he had heard me.

"Brink," I said a little louder.

"Brink," Ebony repeated. "That doesn't sound familiar."

"It wouldn't, no one knew my dad, they just knew his brothers. Bray and Martin." Tanner answered for me.

Ebony recovered more quickly than I thought she would, "Then why didn't he go to school with them?"

It seemed as if Tanner was ready for this, ready for anything they asked, "He loved the outdoors so much, he didn't go to school."

This statement confused everyone even more, now I need to explain, or at least I felt I should, "I know it sounds foolish, but that's what happened, his parents coulndn't make him go to school, so they left him be. Then the virus happened, and Twilight started the Ecos. That's about when he changed his name. His favorite time of the day was twilight..." I couldn't finish, I seemed to had lost my voice.

Noboy said anything for several awkward minutes, and you couldn't hear anything except for the crakling of the fire. Right after a particularly loud crack something was heard. Whoever it was, they were talking very queitly, almost as if she didn't want anyone to hear it, but everyone heard it clealy. It was the one syllable everyone was thinking, but wouldn't dare say.

"Why?" It was my daughter. The thing was, I didn't have an answer for her question. Apparently, Tanner didn't either.

She repeated it, "Why? Why didn't you tell me-tell us?"

"I-I just couldn't, we were all having such a good time. You're growing up, starting to like people like Tristan..." I had let it slip, something I had read in her diary, "Oh, Brady, let me explain."

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Sorry it took me so long, it was school. But now, school is over. Yay! Except i don't get to see my friends anymore :( 

Anyway, I know it's short, sorry, Please still review though!

Oh and thanks to ALittleinLove, jamy98, and cosmic for reviewing.


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